D&D 5E 5e Basic Rules poll

How do you feel about the 5th edition Basic Rules?

  • Love it!

    Votes: 219 71.6%
  • Hate it!

    Votes: 17 5.6%
  • Reserving judgement until I actually play

    Votes: 70 22.9%

Chaltab

Explorer
I don't love it or hate it. It seems like a tolerable game with some really good ideas and some bad ideas but there's no one thing compelling enough for me to spend money.
 

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I didn't vote. I neither love it, nor hate it. There are some good ideas, and it's mostly a good game, but there are too many dealbreakers for me to buy it.
Care to elaborate on your dealbreakers? Expect no hostility, I'm just curious.

I do not see any deal breakers, however in my opinion this is not a basic set of rules. Too many things are included that should have been options.

I will be taking a red pen to it after I print it out to mark the options. Otherwise I like it.
Like above, which parts do you wish were more "basic"? Once again, I'm mostly just curious.
 

BryonD

Hero
I like what I see and after about 15 years of 3E variations, it has what I need for a change.
I'm happy to pay for it and enjoy it.

The future remains to be seen. Without a strong high-quality stable of options to robustly re-tune the game I can't see it being my go-to game for very long.
I can also see the bounded A/V system getting to be very much a been there done that. (As a new thing it looks really cool and I'm looking forward to it.)

So much remains to be seen.

I can see myself playing 3E games 10 years from now. 5E still has its work cut out for it. But it is possible for it to get there.
 

Daern

Explorer
Luv it

I bought the starter set from the guy I've been buying D&D from since '87. I sat down with my gf and another couple. None of them had much of any RP experience. We had a great game. They really got into the Ideals/Bonds/Flaws part of the character sheets. For me, it ran smoothly and quickly even though I was using a DCC module (Prince Charming Re-Animator)

(as an aside, I've house-ruled DCCRPG to the point of confusing myself, so this felt like a simpler, faster game than that.)
 

Keldryn

Adventurer
I'm loving what I've seen so far. I DMed a couple of sessions using the first playtest packet back in 2012, and we had a lot of fun with that. I get a strong vibe of B/X, BECM(I), and RC D&D out of these Basic Rules, but with more modern mechanics and design sensibilities.

I absolutely love how the backgrounds with their traits, bonds, and flaws are prominent in even the stripped-down version of the game. They aren't tacked on in some appendix, they are an integral part of the character creation system. Players who like coming up with their own backstories and character profiles can still do so, and players who don't want to do that can still have characters that have some grounding in the game world.

I've grown weary of class and race splatbooks, and I hope we don't see very many in 5e, but I would definitely buy a book that was full of new well-developed backgrounds and expanded traits, bonds, and flaws.

I really liked what 4e was doing with backgrounds, but they only appeared in PHB2 and the later splatbooks, and they were limited in what they could provide to the character as they weren't part of the original design.
 

Talath

Explorer
I've almost finished reading the basic rules, and in many places I am just struck by the mechanical elegance and simplicity of what used to be a game that grew more complex with each edition. I would have to sit down and focus on writing a list of everything I really liked, because it would be a really long list and would contain mentions of rules that I imagine many people just wouldn't mention or notice (though if you came from 3e and 4e you might). It does so many things right that I have no room in my head to hold examples of things I dislike, or are even meh about.

IT'S AN AWESOME GAME AND EVERYONE SHOULD FEEL AWESOME!
 

JamesonCourage

Adventurer
I keep seeing the word, "MEH," in this thread. For me the only thing "MEH is that it's Basic, i.e.: lacking the coolest options--but that's a feature of 5B (as Thaumaturge likes to call it) and not a point against 5E as a whole.
I thought the same thing at first, but then I double checked the poll wording. Since I was explicitly asked about my views on Basic, and not 5e as a whole, I judged it based on what was missing: feats, lots of basic options (many subclasses, backgrounds, etc.), lack of classes outside the basic four, etc.

While I know that it's a feature of the Basic rules, it's not something I like. Based on that, and on several other issues (that I don't mind expanding on, but don't want to come off as a hater), I had to vote "hate it." It's just too basic for me, personally.

We'll see how the 5e PHB is, though. I definitely won't buy it (or pirate it), but I'll pay attention when people talk about it. Curious what's in there that'll grab my interest. 5e has a lot of innovations, and I'm curious about them. So we'll see. Until then, I'm judging Basic based on how basic it is.
 


Evenglare

Adventurer
I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. It's so elegant in its design. As a physicist I like elegance. The character is by far one of the best sheets I have -ever- seen. The proficiency bonus is genius. Love the death mechanic. The trait ideal flaw thing is just ... yes... I'm all about it. Advantage and disadvantage mechanic is awesome. Elegant spell design used to reduce bloat, yes! Races and subclasses are presented in the ideal way. Just... man... just everything about it is refined. I love it
 


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